Television producer and writer Jason Katims is known for tackling emotional stories. Even his new NBC comedy, "About a Boy," deals with bullying and depression. But family challenges are most apparent in his dramas, especially "Parenthood," finishing its fifth season on NBC, for which Katims sometimes draws on his own experiences. On "Parenthood," the character Max Braverman (played by Max Burkholder) is a child struggling with the autism spectrum disorder Asperger's syndrome. As the father of a son with this developmental disorder, what has it been like to tell that story?

AUSTIN, Texas - Rashad Charjuan Owens was a music producer with hopes of stardom. He lived in Killeen, Texas, about 70 miles from this city's famed South by Southwest Conference, the annual festival where the worlds of music, film and technology blur. Police said an officer on drunk-driving patrol tried to stop a gray sedan about 12:30 a.m. Thursday. But the car took off, weaving, then accelerating the wrong way on a one-way street. It went through police barricades that were set up on Red River Street to protect pedestrians, then dashed through the entertainment district, where the bands X and TEEN had just wrapped up. Rapper Tyler the Creator was scheduled to perform at 1 a.m. During the chaotic flight under pursuit by the police, the vehicle - which authorities said may have been stolen - hit a moped, a taxi and a bicyclist, then went onto a sidewalk and hit a van, police said.

Mohammad Qasim Fahim Influential Afghan vice president Influential Afghan Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, 57, a leading commander in the alliance that fought the Taliban who was later accused with other warlords of targeting civilian areas during the country's civil war, died Sunday of natural causes in Kabul. He had diabetes and other ailments. Fahim was an ethnic Tajik who was the top deputy of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was killed in an Al Qaeda suicide bombing two days before the Sept.

Prospect Park Networks -- the production company that launched with high hopes of bringing two canceled ABC soap operas back to life -- has put itself on legal life support. The production firm based in Century City, headed by veteran producers Jeff Kwatinetz and Rich Frank, said Monday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The group spent nearly three years and more than $10 million trying to revive two canceled daytime dramas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," that ran for four decades on the ABC television network.

When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, one of his selling points was the promise of a more modest foreign policy than that of his predecessor. And when Obama won reelection 16 months ago, he renewed that pledge. Drone strikes against Al Qaeda would continue, and Navy visits to the South China Sea would increase, but the U.S. footprint around the world was being resolutely downsized. Mitt Romney warned at the time that Obama wasn't being tough enough on Vladimir Putin, but the president scoffed at the idea that Russia was a serious geopolitical threat.

They're known as Arabbers and their profession as Arabbing - words that are supposed to evoke the nomadic life of a street merchant. Arabbers sell fruit and vegetables from horse-drawn carts, much as the first Arabbers did when the profession took root in Baltimore after the Civil War as a way to provide blacks with work. Once a thriving niche with more than 40 stables across the city, the trade has declined to just three stables. The job of guiding a horse and a day's worth of inventory through city streets has always been hazardous.

Strive as one might for objectivity, certain shows come equipped with viewer expectations. So when Denis Leary announced that USA would be debuting his comedic accompaniment to "Rescue Me," a natural reaction, at least among Leary fans, would have been "Yay. " Then, when the first episode of "Sirens," which premieres Thursday, turned out to be one long (literally and figuratively) penis joke, an equally natural reaction might have been "Gaack. " Which is no doubt why USA sent three episodes for review.

Fox has tapped Grammy award-winning producer and rapper Timbaland to produce and write music for the new pilot "Empire," the network announced Tuesday. “Empire” is a family drama anchored in the hip-hop world and will feature both original and current music. Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson will star. Howard will play Lucious Lyon, the charismatic, savvy head of a record label. Henson will portray Cookie, Lucious' ex-wife, who spent 17 years behind bars for dealing drugs and upon her release for good behavior returns to reclaim what she feels is hers after she funneled all that drug money into her husband's fledgling music business.

There was a 69-year gap between the time that Stanley Rubin enrolled at UCLA in hopes of launching a writing career and 2006, when he actually graduated. And during that seven-decade break in schooling, the prolific film and television writer and producer left his mark at nearly every studio in Hollywood, helped run the Writers Guild and Producers Guild and took home one of the first Emmys ever awarded. Rubin, 96, died Sunday in his sleep at his home above the Sunset Strip, said actress Kathleen Hughes , his wife of 59 years.

Perhaps it's not a big surprise that "12 Years a Slave," the acclaimed movie based on the true story of a free black man who was sold into slavery in the 1840s, won the Academy Award for best picture. It had already won critical acclaim and praise for its lead actors, director and writer (all of whom were nominated for Oscars as well). Besides, as Ellen DeGeneres, the host of the show, joked at the beginning of the evening, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters had only two options: Either they could bestow their highest honor on "12 Years a Slave," or they were all racists.